May 28, 2011

... with Instapundit. There's a funny but NSFW image at the link. BTW, I think Crack is wrong about why Glenn doesn't link to him. I think Glenn's mind and Crack's mind are just far enough out of sync that... well, maybe one day, one of them, all of a sudden will realize he's on the wrong page or on the right page but the wrong note, and he's got to get in sync with the other one to understand what’s happening in this country. And it will be blogged.

AND: The link in the "ADDED" section was wrong for many hours yesterday, I apologize. Corrected.

ALSO: Instapundit acknowledges that his site was sending out malware vibes yesterday. Sorry I passed that along. I kept noticing a nasty window popping up when I tried to go to his site, but it took me a long time to notice that I'd entered it here.

Crack is a one note banjo. I believe he is onto something that is significant in terms of the infiltration of New Age teaching and thinking into mainstream life let alone liberalism and leftism. But it doesn't explain everything. I enjoy reading him and will continue to do so. But there is a lot more going on over at Insty that helps me keep abreast of my world. Put it this way, Insty first in the morning, then Althouse (that was reversed during the siege of the capital in Madison), then Hot Air and last Drudge. Crack is in the evening if I have time.

caplight, Crack might not produce as many posts on as many topics as Instapundit (which doesn't say much, since all he writes are headline intros and "Heh"), or Althouse (exceptionally prodigious and eclectic), but Crack is hardly "one-note" anything.

Btw Crack- I can't count the number of times I too sent Insty a brilliant comment or observation of mine and yet he somehow failed to recognize my briliance. But I didn't pout or lash out like you do every other day. So I suggest you get over yourself. And afterall, I bet you still would not be happy being just another Megan McArdle.

He's really working his ass off on that blog and with how little external reward for it?

I daresay Ann wants to nudge his paradigm in a bit of a different direction. Fair enough: Crack wants to nudge her paradigm too. But why shouldn't he feud with Instapundit if he wants? He wants to take on a big dog, it's part of the game.

Most people would've given up long ago and just surfed for porn, if they used that computer at all.

Crack is not one to get lost in the ambiguities of life. This gives him admirable energy and focus. Still, the source of this energy and focus is a kind of New Age belief that New Age beliefs are the the source of mankind's ills.......The human mind has an incredible affinity for bullshit. To my knowledge, there is no human being who did not believe in a certain amount of balderdash. Isaac Newton not only believed in astrology and alchemy, but such beliefs inspired his research. Thus the calipers by which we measure reality and the motions of the universe were forged in fires of manure.....I think a lot of people turn to New Age crap as a kind of vaccination against the larger forces of irrationality that are arrayed against them. Tune in to Oprah and find out what it all means. A dumb belief, truly, but marginally better than that nagging feeling that none of this means anything.

No, I mean that they don't make sense in a different way. Take your original comment, for example.

Time for some...sanctified T 'n Aeh Miss Hunt.

Why would you think that I think the ADDED link goes to "T 'n A?"Why would you think that I would be interested in "T 'n A?"Why would you think that if I were interested in "T 'n A," that I'd be interested in "sanctified T 'n A?"Why would you think that I fancy myself as some version of the Church Lady?

(btw what do you think Sarah Palin thinks of the RCC? hint---nada)

Why would you think that I am particularly interested in Sarah Palin?Why would you think that I care what Sarah Palin thinks about the Catholic Church?Why would you think that I care what any candidate thinks about the Catholic Church?

Basically, your comment, which seems to be an attempted dig at me, is entirely irrelevant to me.

2:20. Ah, I got quite a bit Miss Hunt. Unfortunately I do have an attachment to old-fashioned concepts such as reason, justice, liberty for all, etc. I doubt you can quite grasp that--except maybe with some hard study. Alas I dont think you're in the area for some.... discipline-training.

I'll comment on all this later (I must admit, it's kind of weird to see myself discussed the way I am on this thread - it's both touching and insulting) but what I want to know, right now, is about that extra link:

It led me to a site that claimed to "checked your computer for malware" and wanted me to download something, which I ain't gonna do.

Crack - make sure nothing downloaded on its own. Check your Downloads folder, and if there's a recent .zip file there, delete it (sorry, I can't remember the name of it). Then check your Activities Monitor, and see if anything with a name like MacDefender, or MacAntivirus or such is running. If so, kill it, find it in your Applications folder and trash it, then empty your trash. Then check your Settings, under Accounts, and see if the damned thing created its own account. If so, you have to delete that, too.

That's a malware link, Althouse... and you shouldn't link to malware. If you need to ask what it is, then write out the URL without making it into a link.

It seems to pop up on a timer. The site came up for me, but I never visited the link to Crack's site. I started with a fresh browser and visited your site and Jaltcoh; it's possible that your site, or your son's, might be the source for the malware.

I premptively apologize to Crack: I can see the potential condescension in speaking of him (and his computer) in the 3rd person like that.

By way of explanation, I'll note I just came across his commentary on the state of the machine yesterday, and (hypochondriac that I am) I was genuinely worried. I hope it isn't leaking. --And I know that's maybe a bit Jenny McCarthyfied of me, but still, god knows what all's in these things.

The sheer volume of output is daunting, and the thought of it being pushed through a recalcitrant computer is amazing. I'm not a techie or a blogger, but I can imagine the grief.

And whenever blogger's swallowed a comment of mine here, I've just gone for coffee and forgotten about it. Which is as much as to say: I don't even respect my own thoughts enough to bother to work them out a 2nd time. Which, since they're kinda ad hoc anyway, probably is no real lose to me or to others. But still it gives me grief when they're swallowed.

Crack has to put up with that kind of grief (including being on the avant-garde of blogger's Reign of Terror before Althouse). He keeps pushing the rock back up to the mountaintop. And that's very impressive.

Crack is a one note banjo. I believe he is onto something that is significant in terms of the infiltration of New Age teaching and thinking into mainstream life let alone liberalism and leftism. But it doesn't explain everything. I enjoy reading him and will continue to do so.

Thanks. But, like Insty, I'm not trying to be comprehensive. I think you're reading the same things I am, starting with Drudge, and go from there. And even I don't think NewAge explains "everything," but it explains enough that it's worth commenting on, and understanding, because it's definitely affecting our lives.

Pastafarian,

Crack might not produce as many posts on as many topics as Instapundit (which doesn't say much, since all he writes are headline intros and "Heh"), or Althouse (exceptionally prodigious and eclectic), but Crack is hardly "one-note" anything. And a banjo, that really doesn't fit. A slapped electric base, maybe.

Attaboy. As far as my number of posts, folks, I've got to make a living,...

windbag,

What's Crack's traffic count? Is he even playing the same game as Reynolds, let alone the same league?

I was in the 4,000s, but - since the Blogger fiasco and the move to the new site - the 4-600s. It's depressing.

Then the Civil Rights Movement has fulfilled it's mandate. We be equals now!

Fred4Pres,

You guys have problems with Crack because you are: 1) Man hating women (aka feminists) 2) New agers 3) Boomers 4) It bothers you he is right all the time. 5) All of the above.

BINGO!

AJ Lynch,

Btw Crack- I can't count the number of times I too sent Insty a brilliant comment or observation of mine and yet he somehow failed to recognize my briliance. But I didn't pout or lash out like you do every other day. So I suggest you get over yourself. And afterall, I bet you still would not be happy being just another Megan McArdle.

Dude, why would you assume you - of all people - understand what I'm doing or thinking? And why wouldn't I - of all people - comment on something like this? That - and the post Ann linked to -proves, to me, it's not that Glenn doesn't "recognize my briliance," he doesn't even understand the playing field we're (all) on. I think it's called "tunnelvision".

Lucius,

I'm worried Crack's gonna get poisoned by that damned leaky computer screen of his. I haven't even considered the health implications of this thing. (I even sleep with it.) Oh well, a man's gotta do what a man's got to do. But thanks for the concern - it means a lot.

Crack is not one to get lost in the ambiguities of life. This gives him admirable energy and focus. Still, the source of this energy and focus is a kind of New Age belief that New Age beliefs are the the source of mankind's ills.

Almost - it's beliefs, themselves, that I say fuck us up. (And if anyone can explain why Glenn Reynolds ignores subjects, like what's in that last link, I'd like to hear it.) It's not just NewAge beliefs, though they are especially pernicious because they carry a "harmless" label in the Western world, when I saw - first hand - how they not only kill but allow the killers to walk free. As the comedian Joe Rogan says, we live in a time when we have, both, computers and people willing to blow themselves up for 72 virgins. If that's not a problem, I don't know what is.

What NewAge has done to my life, personally and professionally, is a whole other issue. I swear, if you could compare my life, before and after NewAge had it's way with it, you'd all be my biggest supporters. I used to perform music for thousands, now I'm lucky if I work, in any profession, at all.

I listen to Classical music in the truck, and today I almost started crying when I heard the applause at the end of an Opera. "That used to be me," I thought, knowing I wasn't the one who killed anyone and, still, kind of wondering how it's come to this.

Here's a question that haunted me again, today, for you brainiacs who think you know so much:

One of the last things my wife said to me was, "We're in the hospitals - we're getting legit - you'd better 'get it' before it's too late!"

Now, I know it's about NewAge and quackery infiltrating and exploiting the healthcare system under the banner of "wellness" - and I know they're a bunch of fucking Nazis - but what all are they actually thinking and how are they doing it?

Really, it haunts me. This isn't theory to me, y'all - this is my real-ass life - and actually happening to all of us, but the rest of you are, willingly, playing dumb. In the skeptical world, we call you "shruggies", because - as people die or meet some other ugly fate - you shrug and either declare it's not happening as I say it is, or chose to ignore it (because it's not happened to you) or you just don't care. Wherever you fall on the shruggie scale, it's not flattering to you as an individual, or society as a whole.

The human mind has an incredible affinity for bullshit. To my knowledge, there is no human being who did not believe in a certain amount of balderdash. Isaac Newton not only believed in astrology and alchemy, but such beliefs inspired his research.

Yeah, dude, but Issac Newton was a long time ago - he gets a pass for erroneous ideas - but there isn't one bit of NewAge that hasn't been debunked, proven wrong, and otherwise exposed in the modern world - and, yet, we still allow them to kill at will, still tolerate NewAge ideas to be presented as true on every street corner, and still applaud Oprah for presenting them - and calling her a "moral force" for doing so.

I think a lot of people turn to New Age crap as a kind of vaccination against the larger forces of irrationality that are arrayed against them.

No, they turn to NewAge because they can't cope with the modern world, whether that's technology (it really caught on as the Industrial Age began) or war (it really blew up during the Iraq conflict) or whatever. These are people (most quite educated) with a loose grip on a "reality" they can't understand - not a madness.

Tune in to Oprah and find out what it all means.

Yeah, like The Secret or Eckhart Tolle or Marianne Williamson is going to tell you.

A dumb belief, truly, but marginally better than that nagging feeling that none of this means anything.

It's funny but, as an atheist, the only problem I've ever had with "that nagging feeling that none of this means anything" is the crazy shit others do to escape the idea.

I've already informed Crack that I think most of the photos he posts are a distraction from rather than an illustration to his points, but hey... it's his blog. His style.

I appreciated your comments, too - seriously - but it's as much an "art blog" as anything else. I think the photos - even porn, though I refuse to post just fucking - have merit as art. I can't walk away from it because, even before I went back to TMR as an art blog - which is what it started as - nobody really wanted to deal with NewAge anyway. It used to be conventional, but I discovered I could be scholarly about it, or scream "MY WIFE KILLED THREE PEOPLE WITH THIS SHIT!!!" all day, and you know what it got me either way?

The usual internet snark.

So why not do it in a way I, at least, enjoy?

Insty is a bit susceptible to science over-hype and medical quackery. (Remember the link to some kind of crystal healing mat?) Perhaps this is a side effect of his wish for immorta...er, longevity.

Freeman: One has to wonder if J is too young to catch the Muppets Swedish Chef reference (gibberish with a Swedish accent) or if it just sailed past him. That was quite the rabbit trail he went off on; for someone who touts his reasoning skills, I hope that wasn't his best work.

I think there's a disconnect between how people see the empirical world and the world of the mind.

What we think is important, but the physical universe doesn't care. It's going to keep going no matter what we think.

Real, serious, empiricism is the only way to look at the universe. If a question can be answered by observation, we should observe.

The leaking in of mystic and religious belief to what can be explained by observable processes is dangerous and should be opposed.

That doesn't mean religion and philosophy are valueless (not all questions can be answered empirically, because there's nothing to observe), just that they should not be used to answer questions that we can get scientifically. That's getting far too common.

I just read that, but not all the way through yet. I wondered the same thing.

I think Postrel is on the money. She's praising with faint praise. I have a seven-year-old daughter who loves her American Girl doll so there is some schmaltz I can buy into. (It's wholesome, high quality schmaltz.)

@Crack: You've had some strong experiences, and you're entitled to your distrust. But most people, even most Oprah fans, do not became cult members. Perhaps the extremity of your experience leads you to overestimate the strength of their appeal. Or maybe not. Hitler and Stalin, by any objective measure, were flaming kooks, and yet they became world historical figures. The underground existence of early Bolsheviks and Nazis had many of the qualities of a cult group....They say co dependents are addicted to addicts. You may have a cultish animosity towards cult followers. Or maybe not. At any rate, good luck in your endeavors.

I think most people who watch Oprah have no idea what they're engaged in, or how it connects to anything else. My only advantage - if you can call it that - is that I was forced to do my homework on it. Now, I can see a straight line, from Madam Blavatsky to Oprah Winfrey, which most will ignore but it's there.

Pasta-When has crack posted about anything but cults, New Age infiltration and homeopathic medicine? The occasional music post?

Dude, I post on politics all-the-time. Sometimes I have to remember to do a cult post because I'm so wound up in it. Ok, I still think he is a one string slap bass who gets annoyed with Glenn because Glenn doesn't see the New Age beliefs behind everything that is wrong with the world.

But, if I'm right, that would be a failing of Glenn's, correct? And - again - it's not that 'Glenn doesn't see the New Age beliefs behind everything" but that he doesn't acknowledge it at all - except for the obvious - and, most times, not even then. He's so out of it, he's a sucker for it.

Only your friends will tell you, you know?

Trooper,

ROTFLMAO!!!! Gawd, I love you, man!

Freeman Hunt,

Crack is great. Glenn is great. Maybe mixing them together is like crossing the streams. Dangerous but possibly effective against a big foe.

Shit, me and Reynolds - working together - could defeat anything.

Fred4Pres,

Crack is the best commentator here. The perfect foil to Ann. He makes her a better blogger by challenging her.

There are so many people I love to read here - I think they all know who they are - and you're waaay up there, Fred. Thanks. I don't think it's an understatement, or a surprise, to say Althouse has been very good for my head. I feel connected to all of you, in a way I don't with most people I meet personally, and I want you all know and remember that:

Althouse should hold a yearly election where people could cast votes for her best commenter who gets a trophy. And after Pogo or Trooper has won like 7 out of 8 years, she could retire the trophy.

All the regulars are winners to me. Althouse has the best group of commentors I've ever encountered. Smart, funny (Trooper) and I even respect a few of the libs (a few) for sticking to their guns, though they seem nutty. It's just a great group.

Blue@9,

Reynolds has a wry wit and an insatiable curiousity. He gets excited about science and a variety of strange and interesting topics. Crack is just another cranky dude on the internet trying to find someone to lecture. "I been around the block and know the Truth, son." Boring.

I prefer to think of myself as the black Archie Bunker, thank you.

Lucius,

I premptively apologize to Crack: I can see the potential condescension in speaking of him (and his computer) in the 3rd person like that.

I don't quite get the attacks on "new age". Not that there isn't a whole lot of crackpottery, I'm just having trouble defining what is new age and what isn't (this is not to say that therefore I'm a proponent of new age things, most things I'd consider new age I'd roll my eyes at).Like Pilates. Is Pilates new age? or is it simply one excercise regimen amongst many that may or may not be as effective as others. Regardless of whether the person who originated pilates was a crackpot or not, the operative mesaurement on pilates is, does it strengthen your core better than other excercise regimens. If so, then why reject that aspect of Pilates.Take Yoga. I know Yoga is considered New Age. When I was taking Karate I heard a lot of that same mumbo jumbo you'd get in any eastern philosophy and in Yoga. Yet, you can't deny that Karate can teach you to be a good fighter, and even balance people who formerly were agressive jerks (and sometimes creates the opposite effect) if Karate, or Yoga then are new age, why throw away everyhing in those philosophies beause you don't like the source. Even a broken clock is right twice a day, so too might be new age shit. If new agers can stumble upon a truth haphazardly while they practice mumbo jumbo, it doesn't make that truth any less true. nor does it make their mumbo jumbo any less mumbo jumbo.And lumping eastern philosophies and crystals, and alternative medicine is lumping things together that, other than being considered "new age" aren't that similar.

Though in fairness to Crack, I see a lot of the left being tied to communism/socialism more so than "new ageism" and I can't stand it. So, perhaps Crack is just calling what I hate something under a different name, in which case I get it and agree.Believing in socialism/leftism brings with it a lot of baggage and irrational beliefs that you, as a leftist, almost have to adhere to to define yourself in that spectrum. If THAT"s what Crack means by new age, then I'd agree it's obnoxious.

But Crack also doesn't beleive in god,so I don't really get where he's so sure that there are objective truths to be learned (and which new agers stray from) as those would require an ordered universe. What Crack really has is nihilism. And you shouldn't expect fairness in a nihilst universe. If somebody wronged you, then there is nothing really right or wrong about it, the sin would be not wronging them first, not that there is a right or wrong that people should adhere to.